4 ms·

There's a free-market answer to the FDA problem, I don't think any real libertarian would argue otherwise (note: I'm not a libertarian). The solution is having

There's a free-market answer to the FDA problem, I don't think any real libertarian would argue otherwise (note: I'm not a libertarian). The solution is having a brand, and building that brand based on trust. Additionally, 3rd parties you subscribe to could verify the claims of brands and their integrity. This is similar to things like Fair Trade [1] certifications, or Kosher certifications. I often buy brand-name drugs OTC for QA purposes. I know that for the most part, Tylenol is going to contain 500mg of the primary ingredient when I buy it. Those portions are likely to be of good purity and uniform size. The off brand, might have more or less, of similar or dissimilar quality. I trust that US-based business for the most part actually care about their customers. It's a web of trust. Do I trust non-US business with manufacturing operations overseas? Not really when it comes to medication, no. 1: https://www.fairtradecertified.org/ https://www.fairtradecertified.org/

bgorman 7y ago
An even better example is UL (Underwriters Laboratories), which directly tests products for safety.
duxup 7y ago
I'm not sure that works if building trust requires you to try it and .. hope for the best.
dragontamer 7y ago
> The solution is having a brand, and building that brand based on trust. You mean like Boeing's 737 MAX8 aircraft? Or Purdue pharma's Oxycotin (aka: that opioid that Purdue Pharma claimed was non-addicting, except it kick-started the entire opioid crisis because spoiler alert: its opium-based and therefore very very addicting?) 1. Big brands make mistakes. 2. Consumers don't know the brands: do you know whether or not your drugs are Purdue Pharma or not? 3. Brands are sold. The original company who made a brand may have cared very much about it. But 10 years or 20 years later, the brand may be owned by entirely new people. Either everyone has retired / moved on, so the company is simply consisting of new people... or maybe the brand was chopped-up and sold to 3 or 4 different companies. Quick: who owns Epipen right now? (That drug brand has been passed around at least 3 times in the past decade)
- linuxftw 7y ago
  All of these things go into factoring your individual trust level for a brand. Do you consider gmail.com as a brand to be more trustworthy than 'totallynothackers-email.com' for hosting your email? Of course you do. In the case of medicine (or anything else that can kill you for that matter), the brand trust has been (mostly) replaced by regulator trust, or store-based trust. EG, CVS is probably going to source from reputable suppliers. You can also fill prescriptions on sketchymeds.com if you choose, especially if you're outside the US. Brands being sold and bought are an input to the brand-trust equation. It might mean 3rd parties are the more trusted source of information in a given segment than the brand name itself (of course, you could say the same thing about 3rd parties, ad infinitum).
  - dragontamer 7y ago
    But even doctors, whose job is literally to keep track of these drug thingies, have gotten things wrong. See the opioid crisis + Oxycontin. What hope do laypeople have when even the specialists with over 10-years of high-class training get these things wrong on a nationwide level? Before the Oxycotin news, I thought Purdue was just "that chicken company" at the grocery store (Yeah, I'm ignorant. But that's the fact, at least I know I'm ignorant). I don't have the time to figure out which brand-names to trust or what not to trust. My doctor gave me a "Tomed mandibular advancement device". I don't even know what a mandibular is. My only hope is to trust the doctor and hope it fixes my problem. I've never heard of "Tomed" before. How the hell am I, as a customer, supposed to build a relationship with a brand, when I only buy one or two of their products per lifetime? How am I supposed to do market-research, and figure who their competitors are? If I buy a competing product, what assurances do I have that it works as well as the one my doctor gave me? Look, I trust that the engineers are trying to build devices that improve my life. I trust my doctor is trying to improve my life. I trust my insurance company is trying to save (themselves and me) the most money. But I recognize that there are systemic flaws in the US Healthcare system, and something isn't exactly working right. In any case, the "brand" system being proposed in this topic is clearly not a solution. Not only is it NOT working right now, I have my doubts that it would ever work under our current system. I'm just too ignorant about the companies who make medical devices and drugs, and I've got the freaking internet in my pocket to research things instantly. That's not the problem, it takes more than 5 minutes, or even an hour, of googling to review peer-reviewed journals and figure out which devices, techniques, or drugs are effective. Ultimately, I'm going to trust my doctor and insurance company. Its all I got. I'm not going to be trusting my life to brands of which I've never used before. Its incredibly rare for me to buy any form of medical device in general, I simply don't have a relationship to any medical brand what so ever.

bgorman 7y ago

An even better example is UL (Underwriters Laboratories), which directly tests products for safety.

duxup 7y ago

I'm not sure that works if building trust requires you to try it and .. hope for the best.

dragontamer 7y ago

> The solution is having a brand, and building that brand based on trust. You mean like Boeing's 737 MAX8 aircraft? Or Purdue pharma's Oxycotin (aka: that opioid that Purdue Pharma claimed was non-addicting, except it kick-started the entire opioid crisis because spoiler alert: its opium-based and therefore very very addicting?) 1. Big brands make mistakes. 2. Consumers don't know the brands: do you know whether or not your drugs are Purdue Pharma or not? 3. Brands are sold. The original company who made a brand may have cared very much about it. But 10 years or 20 years later, the brand may be owned by entirely new people. Either everyone has retired / moved on, so the company is simply consisting of new people... or maybe the brand was chopped-up and sold to 3 or 4 different companies. Quick: who owns Epipen right now? (That drug brand has been passed around at least 3 times in the past decade)

linuxftw 7y ago
All of these things go into factoring your individual trust level for a brand. Do you consider gmail.com as a brand to be more trustworthy than 'totallynothackers-email.com' for hosting your email? Of course you do. In the case of medicine (or anything else that can kill you for that matter), the brand trust has been (mostly) replaced by regulator trust, or store-based trust. EG, CVS is probably going to source from reputable suppliers. You can also fill prescriptions on sketchymeds.com if you choose, especially if you're outside the US. Brands being sold and bought are an input to the brand-trust equation. It might mean 3rd parties are the more trusted source of information in a given segment than the brand name itself (of course, you could say the same thing about 3rd parties, ad infinitum).
- dragontamer 7y ago
  But even doctors, whose job is literally to keep track of these drug thingies, have gotten things wrong. See the opioid crisis + Oxycontin. What hope do laypeople have when even the specialists with over 10-years of high-class training get these things wrong on a nationwide level? Before the Oxycotin news, I thought Purdue was just "that chicken company" at the grocery store (Yeah, I'm ignorant. But that's the fact, at least I know I'm ignorant). I don't have the time to figure out which brand-names to trust or what not to trust. My doctor gave me a "Tomed mandibular advancement device". I don't even know what a mandibular is. My only hope is to trust the doctor and hope it fixes my problem. I've never heard of "Tomed" before. How the hell am I, as a customer, supposed to build a relationship with a brand, when I only buy one or two of their products per lifetime? How am I supposed to do market-research, and figure who their competitors are? If I buy a competing product, what assurances do I have that it works as well as the one my doctor gave me? Look, I trust that the engineers are trying to build devices that improve my life. I trust my doctor is trying to improve my life. I trust my insurance company is trying to save (themselves and me) the most money. But I recognize that there are systemic flaws in the US Healthcare system, and something isn't exactly working right. In any case, the "brand" system being proposed in this topic is clearly not a solution. Not only is it NOT working right now, I have my doubts that it would ever work under our current system. I'm just too ignorant about the companies who make medical devices and drugs, and I've got the freaking internet in my pocket to research things instantly. That's not the problem, it takes more than 5 minutes, or even an hour, of googling to review peer-reviewed journals and figure out which devices, techniques, or drugs are effective. Ultimately, I'm going to trust my doctor and insurance company. Its all I got. I'm not going to be trusting my life to brands of which I've never used before. Its incredibly rare for me to buy any form of medical device in general, I simply don't have a relationship to any medical brand what so ever.